I often wonder what we do in the afterlife.
Where do we live? Do we sleep, and do we
run into people we didn’t like or wouldn’t
want to meet in the afterlife?

My all consuming hope is that we don’t
see people we didn’t want to see in the
mysterious afterlife.

And I don’t believe that people who were
annoying, jerks, or just plain mean
become automatically nice in the afterlife.

But Mike McHugh, Joe Drew, already there,
I hope I see you. And at least one of the
women that I should have been with
but didn’t know she was interested in me
until it was too late.

And I think maybe spirits sleep on beds
and pillows made of the softest cumulus
clouds ever.

And maybe between sending blessings
to all those in the world, you bliss out
the rest of the times in surreal fields of
wonderment, peace and ineffable joy.

Bob Boyd

You and I were so long ago you’re barely a memory,
and though I lost respect for you decades ago

when you cheated on me with that college guy even
though you said you were going to marry me,

sometimes I wonder how your life went and it you’re still
alive in this world.

But then I regain my senses, and I see that we were
so long ago that how your life went does not matter to me.

Yet once in a great while, maybe decades a while, I do
wonder how your life went.

But I suspect if I were to know, I’d find out that I really
didn’t want to know after all.

Bob Boyd

The Sun is a son of a bitch today, scorching everything
in sight.

Steam is rising off the streets and unwary aphids,
caught in its killer rays are melting.

Ants, butterflies, worms, spiders, cockroaches, etc,
are all taking cover

under leaves, inside plants, trees, and even in houses;
some are buried deep in the cool ground.

Me, I’m just sitting here with two powerful stand up fans,
blasting the heat the hell off of me

and waiting for that son of a bitch sun to get over his
hot hissy fit and cool down!

Bob Boyd

I saw an orange dog in a dream.
He was long, lean and curious.
I was sitting in a mall and
he was limping toward me
with his eyes fixed on me inquisitively.
I didn’t know if he wanted food or
to be affectionately petted.
When he had limped up to me,
I extended my dream hand to
pet him, but he and the dream vanished.
Maybe seeing that curious orange dog
in the dream was a fortuitous omen,
something good coming my way,
like a lovely, older woman with orange hair
who writes poetry sitting in a wooden chair.
Maybe I’ll meet her when I go to the
grocery store tonight. Fingers crossed.

Bob Boyd

At first he found

her selfless love

endearing

but after a while

he found it

annoying

but actually

the problem

wasn’t her

it was him.

Bob Boyd

I saw a haunted doll on eBay. The ad read sweet, loving
protective doll $25.00 or best offer. $6.66 shipping fee.

The doll’s name was Jennifer, and we seemed to have
an unseen sympatico when I stared into her eyes.

And I became possessed with love for Jennifer, as if
she was my soulmate locked in that doll

just waiting for me to buy her and bring my love home
to lonely, womanless me.

At first, I was euphoric and Jennifer was too, but after
the excitement died down and our true selves came out

Jennifer, perhaps not surprisingly for a haunted doll,
had a darker side.

After countless arguments and her threats and curses,
I began waking up every morning vomiting

and with welts and bruises all over my body that I knew
somehow that cursed, haunted Jennifer did to me.

So I bagged her in a garbage bag and tossed her in
the trash before I went to work only to find her back

in my house and swearing and hating me more than ever
because of my garbage-like treatment of her.

So, I’m selling Jennifer on eBay for a buck and quarter
with no shipping fees and my good luck blessings.

And, look at it this way, maybe you’d have better luck
with Jennifer than I did and find the love of your life in her.

Bob Boyd

So there I was noticing my nails needed to be cut again
and getting a bit peeved, thinking about how I’m tired

of cutting these finger and toe nails over and over and
over and over and over again.

Then I thought to myself at least I won’t have to cut
these finger and toe nails when I’m dead.

And I began thinking about other things I’d be glad about
when I”m dead.

For example, no longer living in a body machine that keeps
breaking down the older I get.

Not having to constantly buy food to feed this always
hungry body.

And not have to suffer the indignity of always having to
urinate and defecate.

No more bills to pay. No bad news that pisses me off.
And no wanting and not wanting to be with a woman.

I could list hundreds more, but I’ll spare you the boredom
that you’d be glad about not having to hear when dead.

Bob Boyd

He sits at his computer reading, writing and
editing, getting higher and higher.

He’s slightly spaced out, but not enough to
affect his behavior or his writing.

No he’s not on drugs or drinking alcohol. The
kundalini energy in him keeps rising up his

spine from all the concentration and reading
he’s doing, and he wonders if this time

his kundalini energy is going to expand beyond
his body and his room: cosmic consciousness.

Bob Boyd

Amanda was so happy. She met a doctor
on a dating app.

He told her he’d make dinner at his apartment
for their first meeting,

just a friendly get together to see if they were
compatible with each other.

Amanda vanished after that night, and no one
knew what happened to her.

The police contacted the doctor who said they
had dinner together, and he hadn’t seen her since.

The doctor became the primary suspect, since the
The police didn’t have any other clues.

Unknown to them, Amanda was kidnapped by a
serial killer after she got out of her car at the

secluded parking space behind her apartment,
and so far Amanda is still

a missing person, and the doctor remains
the primary suspect.

Bob Boyd

I had a girlfriend once who had three tarantula spiders
for pets.

Her spiders creeped me out, but she was so beautiful
and sweet

that in spite of how weird it was to me that she had
spiders as pets,

I just couldn’t leave her, and I was with her until she
started acting crazy and accused me of seeing

other women behind her back no matter how many
times I told her I wouldn’t do that to her.

And she began talking and cooing to those goddamn
spiders as if they were her babies.

So one day, exasperated with her, I said screw it
and told her we were through.

She went crazy, called me a cheating piece of shit,
and kept trying to hit me as I backed away from her

until I got to her front door and dashed out of it and
jumped in my car and sped away.

Mercifully, I didn’t hear from her after that, though
I thought for sure she’d stalk me.

But a month later when I went to bed I felt something
bite me just as I got under the sheet,

a black widow spider that I killed with a shoe, but after
that I had trouble breathing and my body was shaking,

and I had to go to the hospital ER to get treatment,
a shot of a drug called antivenin and was monitored

by a doctor for twelve days to make sure I didn’t get
any severe side effects from the drug.

I can’t prove that my spider-loving ex girlfriend put
that black widow spider in my bed, but I’m sure

somehow she did, and now I carefully check my bed
every night before I get in it and hope she is

satisfied that her black widow revenge was enough
to insanely get even with me.

Bob Boyd

Brandon was so enamored with Carmilla that he couldn’t wait
to give her the beautiful red roses he bought for her.

But when Carmilla saw the roses, she hissed like a cat
and backed away from them and fell into a chair.

Brandon rushed to help her with the roses in hand, and
he touched her with the roses by mistake.

The roses caught fire and crumbled into ashes, just as
fangs appeared in Carmilla’s mouth and she passed out.

Brandon ran out of her house just as the sun coming up
and never saw Carmilla again

but heard of her death when townspeople killed her
with a stake through her heart.

Bob Boyd

When he died he had a surprise.
He didn’t die like most people do.
He flowed up out of the crown of
his head and merged with the
cosmos into eternal bliss. He
was surprised because he had
felt he’d go to heaven or to hell.
Yet there he was in a state of
consciousness beyond heaven
and beyond hell, and he knew
that infinite, eternal place was
the apex of spiritual evolution,
and the destiny of all humans.
And that he had come home.

Bob Boyd

I read that plants can recognize their relatives,
and that sounded bizarre to me

because I know plants don’t possess a
consciousness,

so how can they possibility have an awareness
of family members?

And does that mean they have sisters, brothers,
aunts, uncles and grandparents?

It all seems so absurd and unbelievable to me,
yet I just read plants can recognize relatives

by “chemical cues released by their roots,” and
can distinguish their relatives that way.

Now I wonder if plants have family picnics
and family get togethers?

Bob Boyd

She was quiet in high school
and a nice girl who never
got in any trouble.

So I was surprised to see
her one night in Boston’s
seedy Combat Zone by
herself.

When I and some friends
said hi to her, she looked
embarrassed and acted like
she didn’t know us.

The fact she was alone
on the streets of strippers
and hookers, suggested
she was into bad stuff.

And I don’t know what
happened to that quiet
well behaved girl back
in high school

that led her to the streets
of strippers and hookers
in Boston’s Combat Zone.

Bob Boyd

My friend, Rory, that lucky
bastard, won the mega lottery.
after taxes about $60 million.
Somehow Rory blew it all in
six years of wild spending,
and he got hooked on drugs.
Last time I saw him he was
homeless in the streets and
had lost his once keen mind.
I tried to help him, but he
wouldn’t accept my help or
help from social services.
Now people say he looks
like a walking dead zombie.
Sometimes good luck can
become the worst luck.

Bob Boyd

A Lot of Noise in Preston, Lancashire, UK.
Jubilant, young lads carousing the streets.
At an age when they’re full of extra energy
that they burn off with shouts in the streets,
some get a little too rowdy, and there’s a
price to pay, police restraining them and
taking them away, maybe some jail time.
I’m glad I’m not one of them tonight. On
the ground with police all over them. And
too much noise for me in those streets.
Glad I’m in Greensboro, NC US tonight
instead of noisy Preston, Lancashire UK.

Bob Boyd

I remember how hot she was in high school
and how I would have loved to have been with her.

But now sixty two years later if I saw her I’d
never recognize her,

and she probably wouldn’t recognize me. And
if I’d been with her, it probably wouldn’t have

lasted anyway, and if it did and we married
and she died before me, my heart would have

been broken in a million pieces and just like
Humpty Dumpty I’d never be able to put those

pieces back together again. So maybe it’s
better I never got with her sixty two years ago.

Bob Boyd

On a news video I saw a hippo lunge
out of the water and with his mouth

wide open tip over a silver fishing boat
with a shocked and frightened man in it.

The man emerged and grabbed onto
the tipped over boat and climbed on it,

and I thought for sure the hippo was
going to resurface and kill him,

but on a boat nearby two men had
rifles shouldered,

and the hippo just vanished under
the water.

Maybe he tipped over the boat just
for a prank,

or maybe he saw the men with the rifles
and swam away hidden underwater.

Bob Boyd

I used to walk her home when I was in grade school,
third or fourth grade.

I didn’t know what romantic love was all about then
but I remember it felt good talking to her.

I lost touch with her after grade school, and now
I barely remember her.

I think her first name was Susan, and I wish I had
gotten to know her better when I was older, and

I wonder where she is now, how her life went, and
I hope Susan’s life went well.

Bob Boyd

I remember the day some guys I didn’t know well
were getting more and more spaced out on weed.

Another guy not spaced out on weed, began to
talk about some serious problems he had.

But the spaced out guys on weed didn’t care. They
said don’t bring us down,

meaning fuck you and your whining we’re too high
to listen to your petty problems.

The guy, rejected, walked to his car, got in, looked out
his car window, and shouted to the spaced out guys …

“Fuck you too!”

Bob Boyd